


trust, deceived

by StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/F, Introspection, Post-Canon, Reflection, Self-Reflection, Slice of Life, hei-ran's relationship with kuruk, i dont know how the timeline of the kyoshi books work and at this point im too afraid to ask, i guess, i mean i guess thats obvious but still, of the kyoshi books anyway, pre-ATLA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26664292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese/pseuds/StopIWantToTalkAboutCheese
Summary: Hei-Ran, and how her relationship with Kuruk colored the rest of her life.
Relationships: Hei-Ran & Kuruk (Avatar, Hei-Ran & Kyoshi (Avatar), Hei-Ran & Rangi (Avatar), Hei-Ran & Yun (Avatar), Hei-Ran/Kuruk (Avatar, tiny bit of Rangi/Kyoshi
Comments: 28
Kudos: 95





	trust, deceived

**Author's Note:**

> title is from the song "you're gonna go far kid" by the offspring

_He acts a lot like Kuruk._

That was Hei-Ran’s first impression of Avatar Yun. He acted like Kuruk.

He had the swagger, the charisma, the alluringly good looks, the easygoing nature, the effortless bending. Well– _earth_ bending, anyway.

The boy was all of fourteen and he was already trying to charm her. If that didn’t scream _Kuruk,_ Hei-Ran wasn’t sure what would.

But there were other things, too.

Hei-Ran watched the boy focus on Pai-Sho more than firebending, and she watched the way his earthbending grew stronger and stronger and yet he only used it to play, and she watched the way his eyes wandered to the women of the estate rather than his studies.

_He acts a lot like Kuruk._

* * *

She had initially been horrified when Jianzhu had told her exactly _how_ he had managed to find the Avatar.

 _“You’re betting the future of the world on a Pai Sho strategy?”_ she had hissed. 

“It was _his_ strategy! It was _Kuruk’s!”_ Jianzhu snapped back. “I’m telling you, Hei-Ran, that boy is the Avatar!”

“He’s still only earthbending! He’s getting _nowhere_ with firebending–”

“Firebending is only one facet of the whole,” Jianzhu insisted. “We can work around it until he gets it.”

“It's a pretty important facet!” Hei-Ran said. “Some won’t accept him as the Avatar at all unless he can bend more than one element! They won’t accept him because of a single Pai Sho game!”

“There’s _nothing else we can do!”_ Jianzhu shouted, and suddenly he looked very old. When had they all gotten so old? 

“There’s nothing else we can do,” he repeated, softer. “We just have to wait.”

Bowing her head, Hei-Ran sat beside him, feeling the fight drain out of her. “I know,” she said, and lifted her drink halfheartedly. “To Avatar Yun?”

Jianzhu offered her a small half-smile. “To Avatar Yun,” he said, and tapped his glass against hers.

Hei-Ran drained the cup, feeling the liquid burn on its way down.

* * *

Despite her initial doubts, though, Hei-Ran was, grudgingly, beginning to like the Avatar.

Not that she would ever tell _him_ that. His ego was large enough without her throwing affection all over him. The citizens of Yokoya did that enough for them.

But still, he did a good job. He was learning. He was growing. 

He was becoming the Avatar.

It was no secret everyone saw him as a second chance. Everyone saw him as Kuruk the Second. Sometimes, Hei-Ran wondered if Yun believed that as well. 

The Avatar’s life was never an easy one, though. Kuruk used to say that he didn’t live up to Yangchen’s legacy– _and he never did,_ a treacherous voice in her heart whispered– but if this was Yun’s burden to carry, then so be it. It was sad, to be nothing but a copy of a lesser man, but there was no way to confront it. He was doing well nonetheless, and she was proud of Yun.

But the truth was, even though she was proud of her student, she was prouder of her daughter.

Rangi had only been fifteen when she had been selected to become the Avatar’s bodyguard, and she had taken to it with such seriousness and ferocity that Hei-Ran had been taken by surprise.

Here was her daughter, a child still, ready to fight and to die for her Avatar, and Hei-Ran could not have been prouder.

She did, however, briefly take Rangi aside to warn her against falling in love with Yun, to which Rangi had given her a horrified, slightly bemused look mixed with a healthy dose of terror. Hei-Ran had concluded from that single look that she had absolutely nothing to fear from Rangi potentially falling for Yun. 

The servant girls, however, seemed to pose a bigger problem than Hei-Ran had originally anticipated. She tried to keep an eye out, for her daughter’s sake.

But until Rangi started following the girl around like a lost turtleduckling, Hei-Ran hardly ever noticed the tall servant lurking in the background.

But she was there. Oh, yes, she was there.

 _Her name is Kyoshi,_ Rangi said. _She’s Yun’s servant. An earthbender._

Hei-Ran had yet to actually _see_ the girl earthbend, but Rangi insisted she could. Privately, Hei-Ran thought Kyoshi must be a poor bender.

Kyoshi was nothing like Kuruk. She was quiet, and meek, and tried in vain to make herself small, to make herself unnoticeable. Rangi would rant to her about Kyoshi’s inability to defend herself, the way she would just curl up and wait for the blows to start raining down. Such an act– neutral _jing_ – was incomprehensible to Rangi. Firebenders weren’t meant to be still. They were meant to rush, to scorch, to be blistering heat. They were meant to blaze fiercely and burn harshly. 

When Hei-Ran had been younger, Kelsang’s patience and Jianzhu’s ability to watch and wait had driven both her and Kuruk mad. The one thing fire and water had in common– staying still was not in their nature. Impatience was the name of the game. Perhaps that was why they had been so drawn to each other.

Perhaps that commonality, that tentative friendship that had bloomed into real love, was why his betrayal had cut into her like a knife.

* * *

Hei-Ran had been… she hesitated to say _“in love”_ with Kuruk, but she had loved him, certainly. Maybe in another life, she really would have fallen _in love_ with him.

But Hei-Ran was a Firebender. She was a Fire National. She had her honor. She staked everything on Kuruk, everything on the Avatar.

And Kuruk had taken her honor, had taken her _trust_ , and had thrown it away for a one night stand with a woman who smiled prettily, and held his arm in one hand and his purse in the other.

She hated him for that.

She hated herself for that.

And after that, things were never the same between them.

On that day, Hei-Ran vowed that should she ever have a daughter, she would not allow her to go through the same humiliation, to face the same shame.

She didn’t speak to Kuruk for nearly three days beyond short, clipped sentences. Her fury had been too encompassing, too blinding. In the months and years following, they were never as close.

And so she had missed the way the old Kuruk slowly seemed to vanish.

Even when he had found Ummi, there was an inescapable sadness about Kuruk, a mysterious heaviness that seemed to weigh him down. It only got worse when Ummi vanished under circumstances Kuruk refused to disclose, even when Kelsang, Jianzhu, and Hei-Ran joined forces in a way that they hadn’t done in years in order to ask.

Her once-friend-turned-reluctant-ally all but vanished under a shadow of grief, with only a thin veneer of boisterous charm left.

It scared her. But she did nothing. Maybe if she had, everything would have been different.

* * *

When Hei-Ran gave birth to Rangi, everyone had been there– Kelsang, there for moral support, Jianzhu, because he happened to be in town, and even Kuruk, who was there with healing water and an unusually solemn face, just in case anything went wrong. She wasn’t sure why, they weren’t friends– not anymore. But it didn’t matter. Nothing had gone wrong. She had been fine, and Rangi had been fine, and the look of sheer relief on Kuruk’s face afterwards had nearly overwhelmed her.

Even then, she had noticed that Kuruk didn’t look well. His expression was haggard, his eyes too old for his face. When he noticed her looking, he had plastered on a grin and partied the night away, but Hei-Ran never forgot that microsecond of maturity, of a depth that was hidden from everyone except for Kuruk himself.

It made her wonder if she truly knew him.

“She’s beautiful,” Kuruk had said to her, the morning after the birth, and gave her a winning smile. “Maybe in the next life, we’ll know each other.”

“I doubt it,” Hei-Ran had managed a strangled laugh. “She’s Fire Nation, and you’ll be Earth Kingdom. Other than me, there’s no connection.” _And I would hardly call it a connection._ “Besides, you’ll live for a long while yet.”

He had offered a sad smile. “Of course,” he said distantly. “I’m not planning on leaving this world anytime soon.”

Two weeks later, Kuruk was dead.

She never knew why.

He was thirty-three, and the doctors all said he should have been fine.

But he wasn’t.

And so the hunt for the new Avatar was on.

She hated Kuruk sometimes. 

By all rights, he should still be alive. By all rights, he should be here now.

If he hadn’t died, none of this would have happened.

But he did.

And it happened.

* * *

Kyoshi was nothing like Kuruk.

She was clumsy.

She was reserved.

She was prone to outbursts, to speaking without thinking, to charging ahead without a plan.

So Hei-Ran watched Kyoshi closely. 

Yes, the new Avatar was very different from Kuruk. Yet her strong will and fierce bending more often than not called up memories of gallivanting around the continent, not a care in the world but spending time with all of her friends. 

Kyoshi’s entire existence unwittingly brought up memories of Hei-Ran’s youth. It brought up memories of a dashing smile and warm blue eyes. It brought up memories of laughter, of shared grins, of secret kisses. It brought up memories of an unfamiliar woman walking out of her more-than-a-friend’s room. It brought up memories of crushing betrayal.

Today, as her daughter and the Avatar trained, Hei-Ran kept careful watch from a window above the courtyard.

At first, it was normal. They practiced their bending stances. They had skirmishes. They shot blasts of red-hot fire into the sky.

And then, as Hei-Ran watched discretely from the window, Rangi leaned in and kissed Kyoshi on the lips.

Hei-Ran’s daughter murmured something in Kyoshi’s ear, and before Hei-Ran could get over her shock long enough to close the window and let them have the privacy of the courtyard, Kyoshi was tipping her head back to groan, backing away from Rangi and settling into… horse stance.

Hei-Ran’s brow furrowed, bemused.

But Rangi was grinning smugly, and Kyoshi was rolling her eyes, and then Rangi was brushing her lips against Kyoshi’s cheek and hurrying away, possibly to clean up.

But Hei-Ran kept her eyes on Kyoshi.

The girl was staring after Rangi with the widest, most lovestruck grin Hei-Ran had ever seen on the girl– or, indeed, on anyone. She didn’t move from horse stance.

Kyoshi was clumsy, and reserved, and put her foot in her mouth more often than not. She was shy and fierce and loving. She was kind. She was brave. She was loyal.

_She is nothing like Kuruk._

Hei-Ran turned away from the window. She took a deep breath.

Kuruk was gone. He was dead. His successor would not repeat his mistakes, and his grip on the world, on _her_ , had faded.

And Hei-Ran had other, worthier, things, now, to focus on.

She listened to her daughter and Kyoshi laughing outside and smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> what did you think?


End file.
